Welcome to My Blog!

My name's Holly and my husband and I just got the news that we're about to adopt! Now that we're getting ready to bring our baby home, I'm chronicling each and every moment. Here's my first post.

There’s a baby waiting to meet us! He’s six weeks old, and he’s halfway around the world…and he’s ours. I just saw his photo, and I can’t believe how beautiful he is. I’m crazy excited, imagining his tiny toes and big dark eyes looking straight into mine. But honestly, I’m a little frightened, too. Even though I’ve been waiting for a long, long time to adopt this baby, it’s still a shock now that it’s happening for real. I mean, I’ll be a mom in a matter of weeks, and Alex will be a dad. We’re actually going to be parents! (Take deep breaths, Holly – I keep telling myself that.)

Last night I couldn’t sleep at all. I lay there, eyes wide open, emotions running wild in my head, my state of mind ranging from complete joy to total freak out. A thousand questions went through my brain: Will I be a good mother? How will I know what to do when he cries or he’s sick? What if I drop him? Will my baby love me? Will I love him? Finally, I burst out laughing! Then Alex started laughing and I just knew: It’s going to be fine – no, it’s going to be amazing.

The adoption process has taken way more courage than I knew I had. And I learned a lot about myself and Alex, too – and that hasn’t always been easy. But I’m glad I went through all that because now I feel confident – maybe not ready exactly, but definitely confident that I can handle whatever parenthood sends my way. This journey has also been a mixture of sadness and hope, and it’s taught me a lot about patience. I know I’ll need plenty of that for the next 18 years or so.

Last week, I found this beautiful poem by Fleur Conkling Heyliger that really touches my heart:

Not flesh of my fleshNor bone of my bone,But still miraculouslyMy own.Never forget for a single minuteYou didn’t grow under my heartBut in it.

Someday, I’ll recite that poem to my son and I’ll start taking pictures — lots of pictures — so we can always remember our first days as a family. I’ve been photographing other moms’ babies for so long, I can’t wait to start taking pictures of mine.

How did you feel right before your baby arrived? Were you excited or freaked out or both? Tell me in the comments below.